Fear of Public Speaking?

Have you ever been asked to give a speech in front of a group of people? And how did you feel?

Many faced with being asked to give a best man speech, or to give a presentation at work, are faced with sheer dread. The fear of public speaking is one of biggest fears faced by people in modern day society.

I remember many years ago, when I was an accountant, I was asked to give a presentation to my colleagues on some subject related to taxation. I felt very nervous and uncomfortable. I've no idea what the audience thought.

So what causes this? And how do we overcome this?

Well we know consciously that there should be nothing to be afraid of, and that there is no real threat to our lives when we are about to give such a speech. However at the unconscious level the body is going into "fight or flight" response. Basically it's fear of being embarrassed in front of others, or fear at making a fool of oneself.

The fear may be rooted in some past event, maybe long forgotten. And it would have been reinforced each and every time you were asked to speak in front of others. But we don't necessarily need to find what started it for us to be able to overcome the problem.

In order to feel at ease when giving public presentations one has to overcome the fear and feel comfortable in speaking. To this end, combining hypnotherapy and public speaking practice will benefit you.

At Hypnotic Solutions we use a combination of hypno-analysis and NLP to help clients overcome fears and phobias. Collapsing the negative feelings and replacing them with feelings of confidence.
In hypnosis we ask the client to mentally rehearse giving the speech and feeling good.

We also recommend those who want to improve their speaking to go along to their local group of Toastmasters International. I was first introduced to Toastmasters a few years ago by one of the speakers at the National Guild of Hypnotists annual convention in Boston, MA. The speaker commented how Toastmasters had given him the skill to do public presentations. So on returning to the UK I joined London Communicators and completed the Competent Toastmaster manual. I now use my public speaking skills in my training school, Hypnotic Solutions Training, to help others in becoming hypnotherapists.